


honey 'n silk

by HeavyHeartstrings



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Humour, M/M, Romance, if dorothea held her play at the cathedral, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 16:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20915090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavyHeartstrings/pseuds/HeavyHeartstrings
Summary: Felix has a weak spot for lovely voices.





	honey 'n silk

**Author's Note:**

> y’all have to forgive me for this one. I took the fuckery too far

He only decides to attend the opera because Dorothea pestered him about it and even Ingrid began bugging him until he finally caved and said yes so she would have someone to attend with. Based off the brief summary Ingrid gave him, it sounded like a typical, boring love story that he would be sick of within minutes; but the silver lining in it all is that he’s actually looking forward to hearing the singing. It’s something he doesn’t reveal to many, but he’s always held a soft spot for those with beautiful voices.

That bright note is nearly dimmed however, the night of when Ingrid and Dorothea show up at his door; both in elegant dresses with their hair curled and makeup done. The brunette has an anxious look in her eyes, like she’s ready to run off at any second.

But she halts when she sets her eyes on him. “Felix!” Dorothea cries. “_What_ is this?” She asks in disgust, waving a general hand over his form.

The navy-haired student frowns as he glances back down at himself, still dressed in his regular academy uniform. “I don’t know what you mean,” he comments back bluntly. Does he really look that bad?

The brunette closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, her shoulders holding tension as she does it. Felix spares Ingrid a skeptical glance to which she just shakes her head a little at him, as if to silently tell him to not say anything else.

“Ingrid, I really don’t have time for another makeover after how long we spent together.” Dorothea says after coming out of her moment of silence, bringing a hand to run through her hair. “I’m already late for rehearsal and I have to make sure that I-“

“It’s okay, Dorothea.” Ingrid eases in a gentle voice. “I’ll make him look presentable. You head to the cathedral.” She offers.

A smile comes to the brunette’s face and she looks at Ingrid warmly for a moment as some of the stress leaves her, leaning close and kissing the blonde’s cheek lightly. “Thank you,” she says quietly, before turning away and beginning to jog down the hallway while hiking up her dress. “I’ll come find you after the show!” She yells from down the hallway.

Felix looks from Dorothea’s retreating form to Ingrid’s now-flushed face with a slightly confused and amused expression, crossing his arms over his chest and saying nothing. Ingrid pushes some of her curled blonde locks behind her ear and clears her throat a couple times, looking to Felix finally and huffing at his gaze.

“Not a word,” she says.

“About the fact that you actually look like a girl for once, or that Dorothea just kissed you?” Felix teases with an eyebrow raised.

“_Neither!”_ She bursts out with a sweet rose flush adorning her cheeks. Before he can get another quip in, she enters his room and immediately starts towards his closet. “And it was _on the cheek!_” Ingrid corrects.

* * *

Felix reluctantly allows himself to be put into one of his few formal outfits he owns, only having brought them along due to his father’s insistence in case the occasion called for it. The navy-haired student would hardly consider this to be one of those times, but Ingrid fought him tooth and nail (she did threaten to nail his clothes to his body if he didn’t put them on himself) and he eventually ends up in dark slacks, black boots and a maroon formal coat with golden accents on it. He drew the line when Ingrid started removing the band holding his hair up, but they ended up compromising on him wearing it half down.

Ingrid works surprisingly quick and before they arrive to the cathedral, she makes them stop at the greenhouse. The blonde speaks with the keeper and they walk towards the back of the greenhouse while Felix waits at the front. After about a minute they return and Ingrid is carrying a bouquet of flowers wrapped up. Felix raises his eyebrows a little at her as she waves goodbye to the gardener and they rush back to the cathedral.

“A bouquet of roses for her, huh?” Felix asks her.

“It’s customary to bring actors flowers after their shows!” Ingrid bites back, but she doesn’t deny it.

The two of them arrive with minutes to spare before the opera starts. There’s a lot more people here than Felix thought would show. Most of the Black Eagles house are in attendance, sitting near the front. Various knights, priests and students occupy the seats laid out as well. If Felix had to guess, there’s probably about a couple hundred people here to watch; he thought it would be lucky if fifty showed.

Ingrid leads them towards the aisle and scans for seats. About halfway up she sees some and Felix follows behind her, holding back a sigh as he thinks about sitting in this cathedral for a minimum of two hours doing nothing when he would much rather be training. He spots Ashe down the aisle, saving room for them on the bench and waving. Ingrid greets him and Felix says little as they sit and his eyes scan over the crowd of chattering people with disinterest.

“Felix!” Ashe’s voice addresses him, so he looks over with a placid expression. It doesn’t deter his excitement. “You look great, I’ve never seen you so dressed up before!”

“Hmph.” The navy-haired student responds, crossing his arms over his chest and looking towards the stage. He can see movement behind the curtains of the surprisingly big set and wonders when this is going to get started.

“You’ll have to excuse him Ashe, he’s a lot less excited about this than you and I are,” Ingrid explains with a bit of sternness in her voice. Felix pretends like he doesn’t hear it and continues to stare at the stage, keeping his arms crossed and sitting stiffly.

Suddenly, the sounds of a harp begin echoing into the cathedral and the room begins to fall quiet, all the overlapping sound of people talking coming to a halt and leaving just the soft melody of the strings being plucked. Shortly thereafter, the sounds of an organ start to ease in, and the then curtains part enough for someone to exit and begin walking to the front of the stage. Felix recognizes it to be Flayn, the green-haired girl approaching the front of the stage with her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed with her eyes closed. She’s clothed in a white, trumpet sleeve dress and her hair is braided behind her.

After she’s at the edge of the stage, she looks up and opens her eyes and begins to sing softly in tune with the harp and organ. Her voice is sweet, light and airy; Felix is reminded of Annette’s voice at the way she sings about the opening act of the play in her lyrics. Without realizing, the navy-haired student settles himself into his seat and is already giving most of his attention to her voice as it echoes around the cathedral and compliments the flowing sounds of strings in the air.

After she finishes, the crowd claps for her and she bows her head once with a small smile as she exits the side of the stage. The curtains part and the show begins. It opens into a set of what appears to be a noble’s bedroom and Dorothea enters immediately, starting into a monologue about her prospective husband to be arranged; She speaks about how she is worried the man will not truly love her and instead treat her as a commodity. Felix holds back a long sigh and instead crosses his arms over his chest, already disinterested in the plot. He can practically feel Ingrid’s glare on him, daring the navy-haired student to say something rude. Of course he doesn’t, even if there are plenty of things he’s thinking of in his head.

Dorothea performs an opening number and Felix is taken aback by how powerful her voice is. She hits high notes in smooth, yet sultry manners and he quickly understands why she was such a big hit while performing in the Empire. Her voice carries strong like a large wave of water, then as the song comes to a close it gets softer and softer until her voice is hauntingly quiet and yet Felix hears her clear as day. The last lines of her song are sung with a sadness that feels as if it’s pulled from within her, then the room fills with loud applause before the curtains close.

As the set change begins, Flayn reappears on stage to sing about another person’s story, taking place not so far from the castle. Someone who in every aspect on the surface would seem to be the polar opposite of the Princess, but time would surely tell the opposite.

And then the curtains open once again, only to reveal a backdrop of a forest-like set, with a river running along it. There’s a makeshift rock formation above the “river”, where someone sits with their back to the audience, holding a rod and pretending to fish. He doesn’t say anything, but seconds later the sound of his voice starts pouring into the room and it makes Felix all but freeze up. Which is really foreign to him, because he’s never reacted in such a way before, feeling like a shiver sniped him at the base of his spine all the way up to the back of his neck.

The man’s voice starts out low, carrying through the room in slow lines about how life is at a stand still, feeling like each day rolls atop of each other like thoughtless cycles. The way his voice hits Felix’s ears is still taking him off guard and all he can seem to do is blink owl-like eyes towards the scene of the silhouetted man. He hears a steady drum start to ease into the song- or wait, is that his heart beating against his chest? Felix resists bringing a hand up to check, exhaling through his nose deeply and biting down on his tongue.

The man stands up from his position on the boulder, leaving his fishing rod next to him as his voice starts to pick up. The sounds of the drums (Felix knew it- he isn’t going insane. He still isn’t going to check his pulse though) start to get faster and then the sounds of a trumpet start to join into to rhythm of it all. After the tempo has picked up and approaches the chorus, the man turns around to belt out the lyrics and Felix nearly bites a chunk of his tongue off as he recognizes the man singing on stage to be no other than Sylvain.

His jaw feels a little slack seconds later and he knows he’s staring at the scene in front of him, but he’d be damned if he was currently able to do anything about it at the moment. His eyes _seem_ to be taking in Sylvain on stage, holding a hand over his chest and another to the audience as he pours his heart out about finding someone who will bring meaning to his mundane life, but Felix’s brain is still trying to make sense of the image in conjunction with the man singing so beautifully and he doesn’t seem to be able to process much.

But he does manage a disbelieving look to Ingrid, who mirrors his downright flabbergasted expression. She glances towards him, almost like she’s trying to confirm if what she’s seeing is real too. “Did you know about this?” She asks him in a hushed tone.

Felix swallows a dry lump down his throat as Sylvain holds a drawn out note in a cooing manner. “Not a clue,” he gets out weakly. His eyes are drawn back to the stage and he sees Sylvain smiling into his singing, looking like he’s having the time of his life. How did he manage to sneak this from both of them? Felix hadn’t the slightest clue that the redhead could sing to begin with. And he hadn’t the slightest clue that hearing it for the first time would make the joints in his knees feel like they were coming apart like stone walls crumbling. He’s thankful for his seat in the moment and at the same time mentally cursing himself for feeling such a way. Only a fool would react like this.

But he can’t seem to take his eyes off of Sylvain as the man nears the end of his song. His voice is glossy like silk, dripping sweet honey into Felix’s mind without warning. It’s intoxicating and spreading through him like a warm feeling. He’s seriously starting to wonder if he’s getting sick or something, because surely this is not a normal reaction to be having out of nowhere. His mouth is so dry, craving a drink of water more than ever, but he knows that there’s no way Ingrid would let him slip away.

Sylvain’s song ends and the crowd claps loudly for him. He pauses a moment with a smile and Felix claps a couple of times, swallowing another lump down his throat as the play resumes back into it’s plot.

* * *

By the end of it all, Felix can accurately say that Sylvain’s voice makes him feel like he’s getting punched in the gut. He doesn’t really get why; because whenever he hears anyone else sing, their voices while nice seem to just sound like pleasantries compared to the balling feeling inside of Felix’s stomach whenever Sylvain parts his lips and allows his rich voice to encompass the cathedral in sugar-coated hymns; Felix doesn’t like sweets, but the thought of it mixed with Sylvain’s singing feels tempting.

Flayn comes out for the last time following the ending scene and sings about the tragic ending between the two lovers, concluding the play. After she bows, the crowd erupts into applause and cheer. Felix thinks he hears someone to be crying nearby and murmuring about how lovely Flayn’s voice is. The navy-haired student resists glancing behind him to see who it is as he claps, thinking it sounded awfully similar to Seteth.

Then the rest of the crew comes onto the stage and they take their bows, to which the crowd responds with a standing ovation. Felix even joins in because Ingrid kicks him lightly when he actively remains to be seated, telling him that he should be proud of their friends for the show they put on in such short notice. And Felix can’t really argue with that because while the story was corny and mundane, he’d be a damned liar if he said he didn’t enjoy the singing (or one person in particular).

There’s looks of happiness among the cast and some also carry relief, like they’re happy this is all done with. Sylvain looks like he’s carrying a bit of both, standing in the line of the cast and finishing their last bow. They begin retreating back behind the curtains and they show formally comes to an end. People around them start to begin standing and exiting, but Felix simply looks over towards Ingrid and Ashe.

The blonde is already staring at him with a smile on her face. “Well? What did you think?” She asks.

_That my best friend’s voice makes me want to crawl on all fours for him._ His heart thumps an extra beat louder at the thought, and Felix shrugs then glances to the side. “Not a total waste of time.”

Ashe pipes in excitedly. “I can’t believe the voice on Sylvain!” He adds to Felix’s delightful horror. He narrows his eyes at Ashe a little and stands up, crossing his arms.

“I shouldn’t be surprised by all this. He’s always going on about serenading women,” Felix recalls and scowls at the mental image that comes to him after the words leave his mouth.

“Yea but, why would he hide it from us though?” Ingrid ponders aloud, standing up while holding the bouquet in her arms as they file out of their seats. Felix can only think the same thing while he trails out of his seat with the rest of the crowd around. Ashe excuses himself politely when they move to the back of the cathedral while Ingrid and Felix wait for Dorothea. The navy-haired student tells himself he’s only waiting around so he can be polite and tell her good job, when in reality he’s itching to see Sylvian. Maybe to congratulate him, or to grab him by the shoulders and push him against the nearest wall; he's not exactly sure yet.

But Dorothea returns to them on her own and after a quick scan of the remaining people still in the cathedral he can’t seem to locate the redhead. Felix frowns a little, not even realizing that he could have slipped out past him.

Dorothea’s face lights up when Ingrid holds out the bouquet of roses towards her with a ruby hue adorning her cheeks. “Aw, Ingrid,” she coos out, accepting them and then pulling the blonde into a one-armed hug. She whispers something in Ingrid’s ear and then Ingrid pulls back with an even-more embarrassed expression and Felix nearly rolls his eyes. This is getting ridiculous already, he thinks to himself.

Dorothea turns to him after and smiles warmly. “Well, look at you! Not too shabby Ingrid, I must admit.” She compliments with a wink towards Felix, addressing his appearance. He crosses his arms and huffs, looking away and suddenly feeling like he doesn’t owe her a compliment anymore. Ingrid laughs a little and then someone calls Dorothea’s name from the stage. She turns her attention towards them and then back to Ingrid and Felix with a shrug and a sigh.

“I should go see what that’s about,” she says with a tired smile. The brunette has been putting a lot of her time towards planning this show and she looks like she could use a good rest from having finally delivered it. Ingrid nods and offers to join her, to which Dorothea accepts. Felix says he’d rather go back to his room and the two girls roll their eyes playfully, teasing him about being a wet blanket. The navy-haired student scowls at them and says a quick goodbye, only to be called after by Dorothea.

He turns around to the brunette running up to him with one of the roses pulled from her bouquet. “Here, give this to Sylvain. He ran back to his room right away too and I didn’t get a chance to congratulate him on his performance.” She explains.

There are so many questions Felix has in that moment but instead he just looks down at the rose handed to him skeptically and back up to Dorothea who is already walking back towards Ingrid with a smile. He sighs a little in annoyance, but ultimately ends up finding himself standing in front of the redhead’s door after he travels back to the dormitory.

Sylvain answers his knocks shortly after, opening his door and staring at Felix in surprise. “Felix?” He asks, looking the younger student up and down. The navy-haired teen suddenly feels a little more self-conscious and resists the urge to cross his arms over himself. “You look-"

He doesn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. “I just came to give you this!” he says a little gruffer than normal. Sylvain looks down at the rose, then slowly up to Felix with a slightly confused expression. He quickly realizes the implication and feels his face starting to warm up.

“It’s from Dorothea you idiot. She wanted to give it to you for your…performance in the play,” he explains, getting a little more timid towards the end of the sentence.

Sylvain blinks his eyes wide in understanding. “Wait. You were there?” He asks in horror.

“Uh, yea.” Felix states lamely. “Ingrid made me come.”

“_Ingrid too_?” He asks, bringing a hand to his face.

“What’s the big deal?” He asks a little annoyed. Maybe it’s because he feels a little wounded that Sylvain hid something from him.

Sylvain steps out of the way to let Felix enter in a silent invitation, who crosses into his bedroom and listens to the redhead close the door. It makes him feel a little tense that they’re alone like this, but not in a way that is bad, he grasps. Sylvain turns his attention back to Felix and shrugs. “Ah, I don’t know. Dorothea roped me into it, she stumbled upon me singing while doing chores in the stable one day. My father never approved of this kinda stuff though so I learned to keep it a secret. ” He explains.

“You didn’t have to keep it a secret from me.” Felix barks out a little accusingly. It takes them both off guard and Sylvain blinks twice at him like he’s trying to figure out a way to respond to that.

“Oh- well,” Sylvain starts. “I never thought you’d care about acting anyway-“

“It wasn’t the acting.” Felix corrects, refusing to look at the redhead at this point. Goddess, why is he continuing to speak? He’s digging himself further and further.

“What? I’m confused,” Sylvain states, scratching his head.

Felix wets his lips quickly before responding, again making sure to focus on Sylvain’s wall as he speaks. “I…I didn’t know you could sing.” He explains. “Why’d you hide it from me!?” Felix adds a little harsher.

Sylvain looks even more surprised, then he smiles a little. “Heh, well…you might not believe it but I get really nervous singing in front of people.”

Felix scowls and cocks his head to the side a bit. “You just performed in front of a huge crowd.” He comments plainly.

“Yea, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. It’s different than singing to one person.” Sylvain explains.

“Oh.” Felix responds simply. He doesn’t really get it, but he guesses he’ll just have to take the redhead’s word.

“Why? You want me to sing for you now that you’ve heard my angelic voice?” Sylvain asks teasingly, raising his eyebrows up and down and grinning.

Felix rolls his eyes and scoffs, when on the inside he knows the answer to be very clearly: _yes, please._ “You weren’t half-bad.” He offers.

It’s not a lot, but enough for Sylvain to smile warmly at him. He knows Felix sucks at the nice-talk, but seems to appreciate him trying.

“Thanks, Felix. I’m actually glad you came to watch.” He admits, fumbling with the rose in his hand and staring down at it for a moment.

Felix's gaze also falls down to the red petals, then he looks up at Sylvain again and sees the affectionate look on the redhead's face. That punch-in-the-gut feeling is back tenfold this time, so Felix politely excuses himself for the night before he says something he’ll regret.

As his hand settles on the door handle, Sylvain speaks to him and his words make Felix halt in place.

“I will by the way.”

“What?” He asks in a puzzled manner, turning to face him.

Sylvain is flushing a little, rubbing a hand on the back of his head. “Sing for you. If you want.”

A pause. A breath. “Really?” Felix asks. His voice has never sounded so weak and it annoys him a little, but the happiness that fills Sylvain’s eyes after he speaks seems to overlook it completely.

“Yea. Anytime.”


End file.
